I thought I would split this off to its own thread since it has two interesting implications: 1.) They're one of the only publishers going out of their way to sign mid-sized or larger independent studios, which is something they had seemingly been cutting back on. 2.) It sounds like they are even approaching studios they previously canceled games with, even as recently as this generation.

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Originally Posted by Eurogamer

As for Obsidian and Microsoft, whatever bridges were burned now sound repaired, and Urquhart maintains contact. He even says - in response to a question about how hard it is for independent developers to find work today, in an age where publishers do so much more internally - "Microsoft is looking..." which bodes very well. Currently, however, Obsidian's hands are full, the 175-person studio occupied across four and a half projects: the Tyranny expansion, Pillars of Eternity 2, a small Pathfinder card game, a small idea the studio is "spinning up" and a considerable something else. And I'll tell you a bit more about that next week as well.

They would probably prefer to die in 2 years rather then now though if they had no other choice.

At lest MS would be paying their wages until then. And maybe by that time a new opening would have emerged.

Depends. When you throw your entire company into a Microsoft project, you're pretty much stuck. When they cut your funding, you die. You're better off signing with someone else who doesn't have a history of leaving studios to die.